1. Field of the Disclosure
The present disclosure relates to a system and method for facilitating a transaction, e.g., shopping experience, between a merchant and a cardholder.
2. Description of the Related Art
A variety of difficulties, inconveniences, and/or inefficiencies may be encountered in conjunction with transactions involving goods and services between merchants and customers. For example, it can be cumbersome and time consuming for the customer to locate the section of the store (e.g., the lumber aisle, the flooring aisle, the plumbing aisle) where the items the customer desires (e.g., plywood, ceramic flooring, bathroom plumbing fixtures) are located, to find the most efficient path between each of those locations, and to find a sales person to help with questions. From the perspective of the merchant, it may be desirable to make the task of shopping more efficient, convenient, and satisfying for the customer. It may also be desirable to increase sales by presenting customers with an increased number of choices in specific areas, by increasing the effectiveness of incentive offerings, and by reducing the impact and/or occurrence of undesirable events.
Similarly, from a supplier's perspective and also from a merchant's perspective, it may also be desirable to have a merchant improve the customer's shopping experience and to increase the volume of sales in many of the same ways as the merchant, but it may also be desirable to acquire information about consumer behavior and their actions in response to specific stimuli. For example, suppliers of goods may wish to test the effectiveness of specific targeted offers or coupons, which may be tailored to individual customers and/or identifiable environmental conditions. In addition, it may be desirable to improve the ability of suppliers and other participants in the supply chain (e.g., raw material suppliers, manufacturers, producers, wholesalers, distributors, truckers, financiers, investors) to easily and quickly collect and access information regarding the flow of goods and services to customers. Such information may be useful to effectively test various marketing and/or distribution tactics and may also be useful in effectively managing production and distribution to reduce necessary inventories.
Although it may be a goal of most or all participants in the supply chain to improve the customer's shopping experience, several aspects of the traditional shopping process may detract from this goal. For example, once a customer has traveled to the merchant's facility, the customer can then wait for extended periods for a sales person to get information about the particular transaction and also to get directions to the desired goods which may be located in different areas of the merchant's facility. Delays may be encountered due to the inability to find the right sales person, inability to find the desired location in the merchant's facility, the number of other patrons waiting before the customer, or inefficiencies in dealing with the other customers and/or the sales person.
As an example, a customer is in an electronics superstore and is looking at TVs but there are no sales people around. If the customer wanders into the computer area, he or she may see two sales people who promptly tell the customer they can't help since they don't work in TV department, and then sometimes they will try to find the correct sales person for the customer. All of this can take 5, 10, 20 minutes or longer. It is a waste of the customer's time, leads to lowered customer loyalty, and from the merchant's point of view is a waste of the value that an expert employee brings to the brick and mortar shopping experience versus buying something online.
A simple system and/or method for facilitating a transaction, e.g., shopping experience, between a merchant and a customer would be very advantageous to the customer by enabling the customer to connect to expert resources in the merchant's facility when and where the customer needs it. It could also offer advantages to merchants by allowing store management to be able to spot trends in needed help, what product areas are “hot” on what days, and allow for more specific and flexible staffing.